"From bullets whizzing through the front windows of an Italian restaurant to a tall, mysterious blond who wants to be tied up and spanked — it's life behind the bar, a carnival recorded on cocktail napkins …. "

Maybe the patients used sugar packets in some sort of barter system, or as chips when playing cards. He’d probably broken into a pantry and taken as many handfuls as he could manage. He’d snuck off the grounds with his pockets full of sugar packets, ready for a night on the town. He was still waiting for me, more sugar in hand.

“I think you’d better call the hospital,” I told him.

The expression on his face said, “How did you know about the hospital?”

I watched him walk to the pay phone. His back was toward me and he was hunched over as he spoke quietly with someone on the phone. Then he turned and headed directly for the door. He didn’t look left or right, not even a fraction of an inch to either side, as though he couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

I felt sorry for him afterwards. If I’d just given him that beer on the house, he probably would have had his best afternoon in long time.

One of the waitresses at The Cantina gave us a cat. We named the kitten, “Tina.”

She was so small, about the size of my hand, that we never let her outside.

Tina would hide somewhere in the basement until everyone was gone. Then she’d cautiously peek her head out as I sat at the desk making up the next day’s banks. She’d hop up on my knee and start purring like crazy, kneading her tiny paws into my pant’s leg.

I’d lock her in the basement when I left, but she always seemed to find her way upstairs. She kept setting off the restaurant’s motion detectors.

I was attached to her at this point, so I took Tina home with me.

At the time I was general manager at The Cantina, and worked long hours. Since I lived alone, when I finally got home Tina would be bouncing off the walls. She’d be jumping all over me, with her eyes frantic and as wide as saucers.

“Cats need company,” my date one night explained when I told her about this problem, “You have to do something to help her burn off all the energy.”

“Just trail a string in front of her,” my date suggested, demonstrating what she meant. “Run the string across the floor, up onto the couch, back across the floor and up onto the chair . . . back and forth in a figure eight. Just drag the string until she gets tired chasing it, then she’ll be back to normal.”

It worked.

Now every night when I came home, I’d run that string across the floor, back and forth in a figure eight until Tina just gave up. She’d lie on her back, panting.

Sometimes I’d tease her. I’d dangle the string above her paws and as she lay there she’d take exhausted swipes at it.

One night as she lay on her back swiping with all four paws, I quickly looped the string around her legs . . . like a cowboy tying up a steer.

Her paws now bound together, I began to rock her back and forth.

Tina struggled for a second, then she began to purr loudly. With her mouth open and her eyes half-closed, she lay on her back purring liked I’d never heard her purr.

It became a routine after that.

I’d let her chase the string until she lay down in the middle of the floor. Now when she laid down, it didn‘t seem like she was exhausted, just ready for the next part. She’d roll onto her back and put her four paws together to make it easy.

I’d rock her back and forth with that string wrapped around her feet, and she’d just purr and purr and purr.

Someone in my apartment building must have ratted me out. My landlord came down one day and reminded me that the lease specifically said no pets.

I took Tina back to The Cantina. She was old enough now to be let out overnight.

A bar I used to hang out in had a guy show up one time in a hospital nightgown. He wasn’t from a mental hospital, just tired of hospital food. He had a beer and a burger then left. He was a real card, an OK guy.

Kyle: The thing I remember most about Upstate bars was that everyone talked with everyone else. If you were sitting next to someone, it was assumed that you’d talk and be cordial. Maybe it’s not a such good idea in a larger city, but there’s something to be said for that spirit of camaraderie.

Sandra: Welcome back, and thanks for commenting.

Rebekah: I only had Tina for a month or so, then she went back to the Cantina. I honestly can’t remember if she was “fixed” at some point or not, although do I know she lived a long and pretty plush life as the restaurant’s house cat. I had one other cat with a girl friend I was living with at another time (see the post “A Connected Guy”), and we did have her fixed.

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ABOUT THIS BLOG

Everyone has done it – you’re in a bar, looking for a scrap of paper to write a woman's name and phone number on, or just want to make a note to yourself so you don’t forget something. You grab a cocktail napkin.

(In the TV series The West Wing, a political consultant decides that Jed Bartlet – played by Martin Sheen – should run for President. He takes a cocktail napkin and writes down the slogan, “Bartlet for America.”)

I work in bars. Over the years, I’ve accumulated enough of my own cocktail-napkin notes to fill six liquor bottle boxes.

Here are the people and stories that wound up in those notes -- real-life characters like Jackie Rabbit and Maude the Broad, the narcotics cops Paul and Sonny, mafia guys, some shameless tramps and one suicidal young man. You'll meet an old-time boxer who wants to take me into the gym to teach me his trade, and a woman who thinks God is on the stool next to her, urging her to have one more whiskey and ginger. It's life behind the taps.